Player Microscope – Ben Burnell

Ben Burnell: Outside half

Ben started playing rugby for Llantwit Fardre RFC when he was 7 years old. He played for them all the way through until youth level and received a Llantwit Fardre cap for playing for every mini and junior age group at the club.

His representative rugby first came when he played for Pontypridd Schools U11’s and a few years later the U15’s. Ben was part of the Ponty Schools U15’s side that famously won the Dewar Shield in May 2018, beating Llanelli Schools in the final at the Millennium Stadium.

Ben played for the Cardiff Blues North U16’s at the start of the following season and then captained The Blues’ Combined side towards the end of 2018/19. It was during this season that he signed his first academy contract with the region.

International honours soon followed, when he was 16 Ben made his debut for Wales U18’s in South Africa in the summer of 2018. On his return from South Africa he played for the Blues U18’s and captained Wales U18’s again that season before the covid pandemic brought everything to a halt.

However, during the pandemic Ben still trained full time with the Cardiff Blues and was selected for the Wales U20’s Six Nations squad, making his debut against Scotland in July 2021.

In the summer of 2021, Ben was linked to the Pontypridd RFC senior squad as a regional academy intern from Cardiff Rugby. Ben made a fantastic start to life at Ponty, starting all 8 matches in the Indigo Premiership Cup until a nasty shoulder injury at Merthyr ruled him out for the remainder of the season.

Ben said: “My aim is to develop as much as I can playing for Ponty, and also help the team to win as many games as we can in the future.”

The young outside half has scored 66 points in his 8 matches to date for Pontypridd RFC.